Sonic the Hedgehog: It Doesn't Matter
by iammemyself
Summary: Sonic reflects on the state of the fandom and the message he no longer seems to be sending. Introspective.


It Doesn't Matter

Indiana

**Characters: Sonic the Hedgehog**

**Setting: Modern Day**

**Synopsis: Sonic reflects on the state of the fandom and the message he no longer seems to be sending**

He doesn't look himself up on the Internet anymore.

He used to. Not so much since the whole 2006 debacle, which he thinks is to be expected, but in recent times he's decided he no longer wants to know. He knew there would be backlash, but he didn't care. It's a lot harder not to, though, when it's literally staring you in the face.

It was fun a long time ago, when people thought so much more of him than they do now. When they thought he was fun and fresh and exciting, though that he never really cared about that either. All he ever really cared about was getting his message across, and it is this which keeps him away from fansites and Google searches and all manner of other places that confront him with his failure. He's done so many things, but the one thing he wanted to do, he has not.

He wanted to inspire them.

He still does. But the probability of that happening drops each and every day, and this is so obvious that he doesn't even have to ask Tails to calculate it for him. He won't give up on his goal; of course not. But some nights he wonders why he keeps trying. Nobody listens. Well. They do listen. But they hear something he never meant to say.

He'll continue trying until the day no one cares any longer about his involvement in anything. That's the day he'll stop, and disappear, but not one second before. And yet even he has grown discouraged, because somewhere in the squabbling over fan characters and his appearance and who should be paired with who, everyone has forgotten what he stands for.

He knows he was the stuff of dreams, once. He was an aspiration for many, a goal for others, or merely something used to pass the time. But everywhere he looks he finds the facsimile of what he meant to be, and it hurts. It hurts to know he's not who he thinks he is, who he wants to be, and he can't look anymore.

He wanted to show them that all it takes is one talent, one special skill that everyone is born with, and they can change the world. He wanted to show them that continuing on no matter what will not come back to bite them. He wanted to show them that victory comes in many shapes and sizes. He wanted to show them that it truly is what is inside that counts, no matter what you look like or sound like or who you want to be with. And he tried. He did his best to be who they wanted him to be while still sending his message, but it hasn't worked. It hasn't worked in many years, and sometimes he wonders if he's crazy for continuing on like this. He doesn't want to admit that the goal might be too lofty for him. Too big for him, even though he is far bigger than so many. Sometimes he cringes with the enormity of the fanbase. Where did they all come from? Why do they all stay? How many of them understand what he's trying to say, and how many of them are repurposing what he's trying to stand for? And it saddens him to think that there are so many of them out there, but so few that understand. He wants to know how many there are that do, so that he can be reassured that he has not failed, but he is afraid that the number will look so small against those that do not. And he knows that some of them will say that his message is not important. That people have the right to take what they want from him and leave the rest behind. And this, too, saddens him, because of everything they can take, they usually take the most meaningless of things. If they have to take something, can't they take his message and not the basis of his appearance? But they don't, and he despairs that many of them ever will.

And sometimes he grows discouraged and considers giving up, but then he remembers:

It doesn't matter.

He is who he is and he stands for what he stands for, and if people fail to listen, well, he tried. And yes, sometimes it's disheartening, but those people are already lost. The more he tries to spread his message, the more people there will be that will listen. And even if he only gets through to one person out of a thousand, that will be enough. There are people out there whose eyes are a little more open and who listen a little bit more, and those are the people he is looking for. And if he gives up, if he stops trying, he will never find them, nor they him. And this is why he keeps going, this is why after twenty two years and counting he's still around through each bad review and harsh criticism and shake of disappointed heads, and if he has any say in it he's going to be around for twenty two more.

No matter what, he's going to keep on running.

**Author's note**

**There are 23.5K Sonic fics on the Game archive. Sonic is only beaten out by Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy. **

**If this is shit, I don't really want to know. I was subliminally thinking about something that horrible person who knows EXACTLY who she is told someone she should not have told and came up with this. I'm not trying to insult anyone. But I think many of us can agree when I say that what Sonic truly stands for is lost on most people in the arguments over which character design is better and which voice actor is superior, so on and so forth. Also I haven't written for Sonic in a while. There's that excuse too. [I'm sorry GLaDOS ;.;]**

**So everywhere you go, everyone's insulting and complaining about the new character designs for Sonic Boom. If you're a long-time Sonic fan, you know this isn't a new thing. It's been done ever since the nineties. Everyone fights over what he looks like and sounds like and says, and those are all just silly little things that shouldn't matter in the long run. Because appearance is not what Sonic is about. Sonic is about standing up for yourself, for never giving up, for doing what's right just because you can. That's what Sonic means. And yet everyone reduces him and the rest of the cast into fragments of themselves. Add to that the hugely overwhelming number of Sonic FCs, stories and art of which probably outnumber that of Sonic himself, and you can possibly see where I'm coming from: it's no longer about what he means. And it hasn't been for a long time. As long as we keep fighting and caring about stuff like that, Sonic will remain unenjoyable for years to come. **

**When I was in the Sonic fandom, I never read Sonic fic. Most of it was really bad, filled with super-powered fan character author inserts or strange ships, and I get it. These are mostly new writers, who just want to whip off a story for a handful of reviews. I wrote for Sonic for two or three years, and I only ever found two authors who actually knew how to handle the characters, who got down to the core of them and portrayed them properly: :devpenvsthesword: and :devflamewarflipsides:. I'm not trying to insult anyone. But the key to writing good fanfic is understanding your characters, and I find that a lot of people don't understand Sonic and don't want to. This is part of why I'm glad I found Portal. Even the thirteen year olds want to understand. Even the thirteen year olds read the character studies and the hard-to-comprehend AUs , and they embrace every interpretation of every character with enthusiasm. With Sonic? Not so much. Nobody fights over which GLaDOS chassis or which model of Core is better, and nobody cares that Chell looks older in Portal than she does in Portal 2. And over in the Sonic fandom we fight over everything from the colour of his eyes to what his hair looks like. It's stupid. It's empty and shallow. And it's not why I played Sonic. I guess that's part of why I don't anymore. He's lost his meaning in exchange for brightly-coloured levels and one-liners. In Portal we share interpretations and meanings and theories, and yes, occasionally you'll come across someone who thinks their way is the only one, but I have rarely seen that out of Sonic fans. And I could be wrong. Maybe things changed. But the past is far too influential for me to find out.**

**Yes, I know I wrote this in the style of _Butterfly Kisses_. Sue me. I like how that turned out and I keep reading it. **


End file.
